AI Healthcare Startup, UCARE.AI, Secures $8.2m of Funding

SINGAPORE, May 17, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Singapore-based AI healthcare startup UCARE.AI recently concluded its Series A funding, bringing the total investment to $8.2 million to date. The Series A global investors included VC firm Walden International, Southeast Asia's oldest insurance group Great Eastern, Singaporean investor and philanthropist Peter Lim, and law firm WongPartnership's startup initiative WPGrowth Ventures.

THE SOLUTIONS

Using a suite of proprietary deep learning and neural network algorithms built on existing healthcare data, UCARE.AI has used its predictive engine to help prioritise healthcare resources to reduce preventable hospitalization, potentially resulting in significant annual savings in the industry. It also boasts a highly accurate predictive capability by correctly identifying the risk of rehospitalization for a segment of Singaporeans.

"In a world of rising healthcare costs, artificial intelligence (AI) has shown it can improve health outcomes and improve quality of lives. This is a huge market opportunity and UCARE.AI is well positioned to be a leader," said Yong Soo Ping, Executive Director of Walden International.

THE CUSTOMERS

As UCARE.AI continues to leverage its predictive capability and online machine learning algorithms to serve the 3 Ps of healthcare (Patients, Providers and Payers), it hopes to ultimately benefit the whole healthcare industry. Individuals can obtain a personalised understanding of their lifetime risks so they can take preventive actions early, leading happier and healthier lives. Doctors and hospitals benefit as they are able to focus on those who need their expertise urgently while insurers are able to provide ideal coverage without increasing premiums.

Adrian Lee, CEO of Parkway Shenton, commented"Parkway Shenton is excited to be partnering with UCARE.AI to provide continuous monitoring and disease management to corporate patients through personalized health risk assessments and timely interventions; empowering patients to make more informed lifestyle choices to improve their health."

Ryan Cheong, Managing Director, Strategy and Transformation of Great Eastern, said "We believe that AI, with its capability to evaluate, categorize, analyse and draw intelligent hypotheses, can help make healthcare related services more efficient and cost-effective for the consumers. Specifically for Great Eastern, we believe that AI-enabled technology can help our customers achieve better health outcomes."

THE FOUNDING TEAM

With close to 30 years of technical experience in companies such as eBay, Yahoo, Microsoft and Google, Neal left Google in 2016 and assembled a seasoned team of data scientists and machine learning experts to build UCARE.AI's proprietary real-time AI engine.

Neal, Founder and CTO of UCARE.AI, explained "We want to unlock the impossible for the causes we care about. Solving this challenge has become my personal ambition as we know there has to be a better way to receive healthcare. With the support of our early customers, our platform has already generated predictive risk scores and health insights on hundreds of thousands of people."

Christina, Co-Founder and CEO of UCARE.AI, said "There is no dominant player currently in ASEAN. The capital raised will be used for talent acquisition and market expansion into the region. We know we're in the right place, at the right time, to succeed."

Peter Lim, an investor and philanthropist, is optimistic of the prospects of UCARE.AI. "The UCARE.AI team has the right expertise, partners and a strong leadership team to make their vision a success."

Neal Liu, Founder and CTO of UCARE.AI, has close to 30 years of experience in the hi-tech industry. He built his expertise from late night hacking at MIT Media Lab, architecting large-scale solutions at Microsoft, to working on the latest ad-tech at Google. After more than five years at Google, he left in 2016 to jumpstart UCARE.AI, chasing his lifelong quest of using data and machine learning to improve lives. Neal holds an MBA from Wharton, University of Pennsylvania, and a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT.

About Christina Teo

A financial leader with 20 years of experience in the private equity field, Christina has led a multitude of investments globally across diverse industries within Asia and the US. Prior to serving as the CEO of UCARE.AI in 2016, she was the Director of Mint Media, Managing Director at L Capital Asia (LVMH), and held other senior investment positions at Affinity Equity Partners, Deutsche Bank's Strategic Investments Group. She is also a member of the Yellow Ribbon Fund Advancement Committee that helps ex-offenders reintegrate into society. Christina holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, and a BBA (Honours) from NUS Business School.

About UCARE.AI

Founded in 2016 by Neal Liu and Christina Teo, UCARE.AI's team of data scientists and technologists came together with one mission; to use data ethically to solve real world problems and improve lives. By creating the most advanced artificial intelligence capable of making accurate predictions years into the future, UCARE.AI aims to apply its predictive engine to all aspects of the healthcare industry, to help patients, providers, caregivers and payers manage patients throughout the lifecycle of their diseases at lower costs.